29 March 2004
Panama
How to waste money: after cashing a pay check at the bank, I drove out the back parking lot. My stomach mumbled something. Hey there's McDonalds?. No don't spend money!
But ah I wimped out. I rationalized it's too small to make a difference. But it accumulated. And gradually, my wallet withered away like grass.
I needed money to be with my friends. I wanted to be with my friends. Therefore I wanted money.
United we squandered our earnings. My friends came to me. I went to them.
Scott came in the spring. Anna left in the summer. And oh the aggregate journey of miscellaneous weddings and affairs: it wasn't easy. And yet concurrently, it was all too easy: swipe; gone.
On my desk, my turgid, monolingual bills stretched for the level of God in heaven like the tower of Babel. If only I could go into the future to see when I'm seventy and finally pay off the debt from when I was a teenager. But the wooden flux capacitor I made in shop class can only rewind VHS tapes.
I naturally repel employment. The shape of my signature on my résumé emits a minute subliminal resonance, which hypnotizes employers into scrunching it up and shoving it up their proboscises. Sufficed to say, I suffered little work.
All this I have tried by wisdom: I have said, 'I am wise;' and it is far from me. Far off is that which hath been; and deep, deep, who doth find it? I have turned round also my heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and reason, and to know the wrong of folly, and the foolishness of madness: and I am finding bitterer than death the woman, whose heart is nets and snares. And her hands are bands: the good before God escapeth from her; but the sinner is captured by her. See this I have found, one to one, to find out the reason: that still my soul had sought, and I had not found: one man, a teacher, I have found; and a woman among all these I have not found. See this alone I have found, that God made man upright; and they--they have sought out many devices."Did you know," I said, "Women can be fatal?"
I met her by chance at the focal point where the three crossroads of my creation, creativity and mortality intersected. I was bored. And up from the dust of the ashes of the shattered puzzle pieces of my life rose an angelic voice uttering a divine word.
"Did you know," she said, "Evil comes from within, not from without. Don't brain others for bad you do." Her mindlessly flubbered Engrish cued my inquiry of her past life, to which she replied, "Shanghai." I hit on her, oblivious of her boyfriend, whom she seemed to have conveniently forgotten.
I fell for her. But when I say fell, I mean like a fish for a worm on a hook. The fact was she was the supertype, and I was just a subtype in our inheritance relationship (an awesome sub-type).
She loved Second Street, and got me a gig on her boyfriend's yacht. We would head to San Francisco, down through the Panama Canal. With my luck landing jobs, I thanked her. "About a year ago," I said, "my--my friend moved to Panama."
We met through our best friends, who were dating at the time. One day, she came over, and wanted to pet my cat. But Cuddles was too scared.
"You spoiled your cat," she said, "Now she thinks, 'I can do whatever I want, because I'm the diva, and nobody can tell me what to do.' I'll bet you don't even move her when she sleeps in the middle of your bed. You sleep around her."
"But I love her," I said.
"You don't know what love is. If you really loved her, you'd discipline her. Don't ever have children. You're too irresponsible and incompetent." She shook her head.
One day, I was over at her house, and she complained more than usual. "Our mutual friend stopped talking to me," she said.
"Why?" I said.
"I don't know. For no reason."
"I hate when that happens."
"Has it happened to you?"
I looked off into the distance. "She was from Panama. Her dad was a missionary."
"What happened?"
"I don't know."
"It's wrong. They can't do this to us."
After that, I trusted her more than I had ever trusted anybody, and I knew that she would never stop talking to me for no reason. We met with accelerating frequency. Everyday I called her. We gabbed so much I ultimately mastered the heaven level of telecommunications, and got the power to execute physical assault over the phone.
"I can't believe next year I'm going to be a senior," I said, "School goes by so fast. And you're now graduated. What's it like?"
"The same," she said.
"What are you doing next year?"
"That reminds me. I forgot to tell you. I got that job in Panama."
I looked off into the distance. "Oh."
"I can't wait to start."
"Congratulations. That's awesome you get to go."
"Thanks."
I had a few questions to shuffle through my braindex. Why is she always so happy? Why is she always bitter towards men? Why does she not have friends? Why is she leaving? Why does her dad grab her boobs? Should I grab her boobs, too?
The Lucid Lullaby arrived. She forced me to meet her drunken boyfriend, who said I'm beautiful. Aboard, I had to meet more characters I didn't want to meet.
Then came evening, and I probed the depths of jazz, wallowing in and out of eclipsed ages virtually unsung. At night, I cured myself at the bar. She offered me a cigar. Into my pocket it went.
"I miss home already," I said, "Do you ever miss Shanghai?"
"It's not the kind of place to be," she said, "Do you miss her?"
One day, we were holding hands at her house on the front porch, when a dark van pulled in the driveway. The driver's face was blurred out.
"Why's his face blurred out?" I said, "He doesn't want us to see who he is!" I flipped out.
"It's the guy I babysit for," she said, "The window's dirty. Basingstoke."
"Ok I'm sorry. I'm habitually inquisitive. I have to sacrifice the virgin of knowledge to appease my almighty brain-god!"
"Don't be sorry. Do it." She put a stick in her mouth and lit it on fire, thinking it would make her look mature.
She used to give me sightseeing tours of herself complete with sportive commentary. She wanted to feel less homely and more comely. She wanted me to sit there and say, "Gee you're hot." It was not me she was attracted to, but herself.
"So," I said, "Panama. It's hot down there."
"Not as hot as where you're headed," she said.
I tried to comeback with a sharp quip. "Uh. . ."
"No wonder you're a failure. You'll never be an artist. You've got no personality. I bet you'd do whatever I tell you."
"I won't do anything you tell me. Tell me to stand; and I'll sit down! Tell me to write something; and I'll erase it!"
We were in port three days. While the crew went off on a delirious river excursion, I shifted to Panama City, and her. I saw she had a boyfriend. We'd snogged, as in the past; but she de-okayed it, pouted and whined, and used my own actions against me as the basis of her judas kiss, cold shoulder and vanishing act, and then had the tenacity to say, "Your fault."
"How did you get here?" she said.
"To move without moving, to go without going, to come without coming is to teleport."
Her gold heart loved only money. Yet I miss her. Her cat eyes hated all who dared gaze into them. Yet I feel sorry for her.
Memories of her drown my heart in sorrow fueled by passion mixed with compassion. Yet I would do anything to see her again. Her homely face was not comely. Yet something about her wet my pants with liquid passion. Whenever we met, we could not hubba keep off each other hubba. It was not love, but a violent, animalistic carnality.
I saw her the night she left. Her packed driveway had no spare parking space. After leaving my car at their church, I advanced through the cemetery and the graves of the dead into her backyard. But I was too late.
I drew nigh as she waved goodbye as everybody drove off. I held her, and kissed her. "Oh," she said, "Joshua." Her eyes ran down with water.
"I'm a bad man," I said, "I don't deserve you."
"You're not a man," she said, "You're just some spoiled kid, too immature to know the difference."
"Some smart, some don't."
"That's not a real cliché. It doesn't even make sense."
"Some smart, some don't."
Then she pushed me away, and headed for the house. She pulled open the door, looked back, and went inside.
"Forget it, Josh," someone said, "It's Panama." But I just stood there.